Northgate Council Tax processing system

fFaudwAtch UK made this Freedom of Information request to Northampton Borough Council This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.

The request was partially successful.

Dear Northampton Borough Council,

I believe Northampton Borough Council use the Northgate system as its Software package for the provision of Council Tax. Assuming this to be correct – and the following (see below) is a true account of how payments are appropriated to a person's Council Tax account when more than one sum is outstanding for different year's liability – will NBC disclosed how the laws regarding 'appropriation of payments' are adhered to and the case authority relied on.

"The council tax system has built in allocation rules to ensure that the law with respect to specified payments is met. For instance, if a customer has a payment plan for any year of debt and the payment they make matches the planned instalment then the money will be allocated to that year (this is known as “hard” allocation on the council tax system). If the system is unable to “hard allocate” then it will instead “soft” allocate and the debt will be used against the oldest debt unless manually adjusted."

Yours faithfully,

fFaudwAtch UK

Requests, Northampton Borough Council

2 Attachments

Please find attached the Council’s response to your recent FOI request on
Council Tax systems.

 

Please note following the decision made by the First Tier Tribunal on 9^th
November 2015 [1]EA/2015/0140  this Council will no longer accept requests
that do not comply with this decision notice.

 

David Taylor

Senior Information Governance Officer

(Freedom of Information and Data Protection Officer)

Borough Secretary's Department

The Guildhall

Northampton

NN1 1DE

 

Telephone: 01604 838536

Fax: 01604 837057

Email: [2][email address]

 

FOI disclosure web pages
[3]http://www.northampton.gov.uk/site/scrip...

 

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Please note that the contents of this e-mail, including any attachments
thereto, may contain information which is confidential or privileged, and
which is solely for the use of the recipient named above. The information
contained in this e-mail, and in your reply, may be subject to disclosure
under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or other legislation, and its
confidentiality cannot be guaranteed. If you are not the intended
recipient, please be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or
use of the contents of this e-mail is strictly prohibited. Northampton
Borough Council, The Guildhall, Northampton, United Kingdom, NN1 1DE +44
(0)300 330 7000 www.northampton.gov.uk     

References

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Dear Requests,

You have provided the following which does not concern my FOI request:

"Appropriation of council tax payments is managed through a set of rules within the Northgate system. These rules are compliant with current legislation, however I am unable to provide a copy to you as these are copyrighted to Northgate. Please see exemption table below."

I would like my submission addressing please, which relates to how payments are allocated to a taxpayer's Council Tax account when more than one sum is outstanding for different year's liability in accordance with the laws of appropriation, not Northgate's copyrighted rules.

In any event, your response with respect to Northgate's secrecy suggests that its software is designed so its built in allocation rules gives it an advantage over competitors, with a selling point on which to promote its product, being a claim to optimise court costs income because a system which by default allocates payment to the oldest account is going to cause more taxpayers to default and generate more enforcement income.

P.S. I would like Northampton Borough Council to explain the quoted paragraph below as I believe it has been mistakenly included and might have relevance to another matter. I can make no sense of it.

"Please note following the decision made by the First Tier Tribunal on 9^th November 2015 [1]EA/2015/0140 this Council will no longer accept requests that do not comply with this decision notice."

Yours sincerely,

fFaudwAtch UK

Dear Requests,

Re; "Please note following the decision made by the First Tier Tribunal on 9^th November 2015 [1]EA/2015/0140 this Council will no longer accept requests that do not comply with this decision notice."

Although I don't know what relevance the above is to my FOI request, I feel I should point out that you are appear under the false impression that the First Tier (Information Rights) Tribunal is authorative. I know for a fact that it is biased in the favour of the public body and therefore any outcome is to be ignored, or laughed at.

Yours sincerely,

fFaudwAtch UK

Requests, Northampton Borough Council

fFraudwatch UK is not a valid name and as such all public bodies are not
required to respond.

 

FOI is an individual’s right to request information, it is not an
anonymous right.

 

FOI makes public information held by public bodies requestable and
publishable to improve openness and accountability. It does not give a
right to commercial organisations systems scripts. Your specific question
on allocation was responded to in your response (below). This summarises
the rules used in a simplified format that does not breach the
confidential nature of the commercial data held.

 

‘However we can advise that if an individual making a Council Tax payment
that is not part of the scheduled payments (either current or historic)
and does not identify where that payment should be allocated against then
this will be set off against the oldest debt.’

 

As fFraudwatch UK is not a valid name under the FOI legislation, the ICO
guidance or the recent FTT(IR) decision the Council will not respond
further to your emails from WDTK.

 

I am not sure that you have a right to challenge this position further as
it is unlikely the ICO will accept an appeal without a name.

 

If you have a specific question about the allocation of your Council Tax
then you should contact LGSS, the service provider.
[1]http://www.northampton.gov.uk/ctaxenquir...

 

David Taylor

Senior Information Governance Officer

(Freedom of Information and Data Protection Officer)

Borough Secretary's Department

The Guildhall

Northampton

NN1 1DE

 

Telephone: 01604 838536

Fax: 01604 837057

Email: [2][email address]

 

FOI disclosure web pages
[3]http://www.northampton.gov.uk/site/scrip...

 

P

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Dear Requests,

Re;

"As fFraudwatch UK is not a valid name under the FOI legislation, the ICO guidance or the recent FTT(IR) decision the Council will not respond further to your emails from WDTK.

I am not sure that you have a right to challenge this position further as it is unlikely the ICO will accept an appeal without a name."

You are assuming I have an objection to providing my name. Northampton Borough Council should really get with it and think about the nature of Freedom of Information requests which are applicant blind.

Will you please now deal with my request, not your interpretation of it.

Yours sincerely,

Ron Aka N Gilliatt

Requests, Northampton Borough Council

Mr Gilliatt,

 

This email provides a full and final response to your request. Details of
how to challenge this response with the Information Commissioner are
contained after the response.

 

FOI provides a request mechanism to recorded information held by public
bodies .

 

For a request to be valid the public body has to hold the information
being requested in some form, electronically, physically, digitally or as
an analogue recording.

 

The council has advised you of the confidential status of Northgate's
system rules that are held however in reviewing your request these do not
state how they comply with legislation, they are just a set of allocation
rules. I can find no evidence that information relating to your specific
request is held other than the passage already created to provide a
response to your original request.

 

I refer you to that response again and advise that if a payment is not
accompanied with any instruction and is not part of a current or scheduled
payment it will be allocated as payment off the oldest debt. If you do not
believe this is compliant with legislation please advise the department
directly (as per my previous email) and they will review the payment rules
with the systems administrators.

 

The Council's assessment therefore is that no information relating
directly to your request about how the rules comply with legislation is
held by Northampton Borough Council.

 

If you consider this review has not resolved your challenge to your
complete satisfaction or that the Council has still not provided the
information you have requested without good reason or has not applied the
exemptions fairly or explained them fully you now have the right to appeal
against the Council’s final decision to the Information Commissioner’s
office. The Commissioner has suggested this should be done within 6 months
from the date of this correspondence.

 

Please write to:

   FOI/EIR Case Reception Unit

Information Commissioner’s Office

   Wycliffe House

   Water Lane

   Wilmslow

   Cheshire

   SK9 5AF

 

Or email:              [1][email address]

Or Telephone:   0303 123 1113

 

Further information is published on the following web pages.

 

ICO - dealing with complaints

[2]http://www.ico.org.uk/for_organisations/...

 

Advice on complying with the Act

[3]http://www.ico.org.uk/what_we_cover/taki...

 

The ICO FOI complaint pages can be found at

[4]https://ico.org.uk/concerns/getting/

 

Regards

 

David Taylor

Senior Information Governance Officer

(Freedom of Information and Data Protection Officer)

Borough Secretary's Department

The Guildhall

Northampton

NN1 1DE

 

Telephone: 01604 838536

Fax: 01604 837057

Email: [5][email address]

 

FOI disclosure web pages
[6]http://www.northampton.gov.uk/site/scrip...

 

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fFaudwAtch UK (Account suspended) left an annotation ()

There's a strong case to argue in support of council's having a duty to ensure unspecified payments (unmatched) are never allocated to a previous year's debt if doing so would put the current year's liability in arrears.

It has been discovered that a number of local authorities (a minority) have their systems set so payments, which do not match a set instalment amount, are allocated to the most recent account. However, the majority appear not to, thus causing the potential for enforcement action to be triggered;- hardly something you would expect you friendly local authority to wish upon you. Although the authority in the following example has its system set to allocate payments to the oldest account in these circumstances, it does manually reallocate them in accordance with "notes" listed on the account.

But more relevant to these issues, and apparently in accordance with the judgment in R v Miskin Lower justices, payment would also be allocated to the current year if allocating an unmatched payment to the oldest debt would put the current year's liability also in arrears.

Question (1st March 2016):
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

'Am I correct in understanding that additional to the inference "from the account notes or payment arrangements listed on the account", if it is likely that allocating an unmatched payment to the oldest debt would put the current year's liability ALSO in arrears, the payment would be allocated to the current year?

It would, after all, be implied which debt payment was intended if allocating monies to an older balance would likely put the current year's liability in arrears. It would seem that the anomaly could be largely eliminated by setting the system to allocate payments which do not match a debt instalment to the current year's liability and at the same time complying more fully with the judgment in R v Miskin Lower justices.'

Answer (14 March 2016):
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...

'Am I correct in understanding that additional to the inference "from the account notes or payment arrangements listed on the account", if it is likely that allocating an unmatched payment to the oldest debt would put the current year's liability ALSO in arrears, the payment would be allocated to the current year?

Yes this is correct.'